zgrinder on Fin Warrior

Nice cooler Jon. Keep it coming

great report and thanks!

How deep of water did you give mooching a try?

Fish on the surface chasing bait is a hoot. Brings back memories of my early days spring fishing coho with yellow birds out of Waukegan.

First I have heard of DNR coming around this year. Having them coming in to check out licenses just before the sun drops down would have been unsettling for me as that is prime fishing time. Glad you made it pass quickly. Epic catch.

Had the same thing happen the night before. Lots of tip ups and strikes that came undone during the fight. Glad you got two nice kings in your catch.

I subscribe to Reel-2-Reel on YouTube. They have been talking up the Hulk spoon so of course who am I not to buy up a couple and have been impressed with the action they have been getting on high dipseys.

Took a couple of fishing friends out for an evening float in the heat. Headed out almost straight west to 135 FOW and pointed south. Had all lines in the water before 5:00pm except one. Ran 4 riggers staggered 90-115 on the line counter (Green Flounder Pounder & Green Jeans Mag RV, blue/silver head meat rig with a paddle, Blue Slick SD/No Mercy Fly), 2 wire divers 63-68’ down per Smart Troll (Atomic Melon Mag RV & Fishnet Silver Streak Mag Foil), 300 WS (Craigs Flounder Pounder Mag RV) and 300 Cu (Orange Hulk Mag RV). The line that did not get into the water at the get go was the SB wire diver. I had just put 600’ of new wire on the real and forgot to put the clicker back on. So when I pulled line out to attach the dipsey – rats nest that somehow went behind the spool. I wound up having to take the clicker side cover plate off the reel, removing the spool while Bill pulled line out and rotating the reel to get all the kinks out. What a pisser. But we got it all back together, put a 6 ounce weight on the clip, ran all the wire and backing out to the dacron to square up the line to the level wind and reeled it all back in. Then got it in the water to do its business. Between 5-6:00, I stopped counting after the 6th tip up. The bite was incredibly lite. The meat rig went tip up 4 times, GFP twice, there was a rip on a wire diver and perhaps more. Then finally we had a dipsey release up near the surface, reeled it in to find a small coho on the business end. Another lite bite. Then after 6:00 the action started to pick up. I could not get my guests to do the walk to gain line after a hook up so it was a lot of rod pumping. That put too much pressure on the night's lite bite hook set and we lost a lot of fish. We dropped a 10-12 lb king at the swim platform netting only the lure cause the rod manager didn’t walk back in the boat to get the fish close enough. Janet was really bummed cause she prides herself at netting fish and getting them into the boat. After a couple of hours, we were 3 for 7 on confirmed ‘fish on’ strikes going into the night bite and I was feeling a bit disappointed that our guests hadn’t boated a good size king. And the float was too social for me to get into a bunch of rod and lure changes. But starting at 8:30pm, the long lines came in and the night program was put down. South troll, 115-110 FOW. For the most part it was dark baits on the higher lines and glow baits down low. Dipseys: Hulk Mag RV and Bloody Nose Mag Glow set down to about the same depth. Deep riggers: Green Flounder Pounder Mag Glow and Bish’s Bruiser Mag Glow; High riggers: Green Splatter Back J-Plug and Black Fin Tuna Mag with baits raised up 10-15’. At 8:40pm the first hit came on Bish’s Bruiser immediately after I put it down. The J-Plug got bit right after that went into the water too. I was trying to complete the lure changes and the fish were striking as soon as the baits went down. The wire diver I did not have to screw around with got hammered and somewhere in the initial run, the wire bit into the reel to a dead stop. To Bill's credit he was able to advance the reel and continue the fight which resulted in our biggest king of the night. [another garage project to get that spool right] In all, we had 6 hits with the night program that cleared 5 of the six lines boating 3 fish. Two nice kings (17.5 & 15lbs) that took a while to bring in, plus a double on one of those hook ups, blood and lures coming undone on the floor - it was controlled chaos on the back of the boat so we did not return any rods back into the game at that point. I did note on the Port Sheldon buoy this morning that cold water started to move into the 56’ thermistor at 9:00pm which could have also contributed to the good evening action. Finished the evening 6 for 13. Very pleased my night program, change out timing and sticking to the shallower water while many of the boats were out a bit deeper worked to put our guests on some nice fish and get them into the boat as well. I tried to get a video of the big king coming in on the dipsey but I had to abandon the phone at the end of the battle to hand retrieve the leader so Janet could net the fish - she got that one real good. Most of what got wet above Videos Below 07-28-25 Video 1b.mp4 07-28-25 Video 2b.mp4

Hey Jon, I hate cleaning my fish box as well. Adds too much additional work to the trip. Nice catch for the morning. That small cooler makes the fish look extra BIG

Ed, congrats on landing a 20lb chinook this season. Break offs & tangles, hard to keep lines in the water when the bite is on but you managed it well. Nice work!

Nice catch last night. I am having a hard time figuring out the SD/fly bite. One day it is on, especially on a diver, then it is off. Glad you got em good.

Another killer outing. You guys really got it going. Heading out tonight with some friends new to salmon fishing. Hope I can get half that to have some fun.

I sensed last night the bite was slowing down too. Could be the heat or the fish are in fear of the 2MD wrecking crew

Headed out after the Great Republic cleared the channel and did its business just short of 5:00pm. Planed out southwest into the blow not sure if a direct troll into the waves would be suitable for my guests or if I would need to go north for a while. We set down in 130FOW, trolled south and all was OK. Thanks to the many reports on this site, I knew the fish would be deep, I wanted to hunt bigger kings for my guests so I kept the spread simple. Two DRs down 90’ on the counter. Green Flounder Pounder (GFP) Mag RV on the SB side and a meat rig, bait head only on the SWR to the Port. Two wire dipseys were deployed, one with a Hulk Mag RV spoon and a SD/Salmon Candy green fly on the other (this did not get sniffed the entire run). After a period of not much happening we got a flurry of activity, boating a nice size king on the GFP and a SH on a wire dipsey among a few drive buys in the mix. As we got to Saugatuck on a south troll, with only two boats within a mile of each other, a larger boat would not let up their relentless pressure pushing our troll south to SW, pushing me into deeper water. I would give way and they kept cranking me over to deeper water. There are ways good captains handle this situation and I did just that. I backed my troll to a 1.6mph crawl. Let the other boat cross me diagonally with all their long lines, careful not to run across them and start that whole bitch fest that happens in these situations. Zero radio contact, which is also on me but by the time they were over my bow, there was nothing left to say but goodbye and good riddance. Anyway, we flipped Fin Warrior around to a north troll and proceeded on. As I was adding a 300’ weighted steel line to the spread with Craigs Flounder Pounder mag RV, the meat rig finally got bit. After our long battle, we were disappointed it was not a king but a LT and boy did it make a mess of the boat. That might be evident in one of the pics. It was returned to the lake. I would swear we were roughly in that same Lat area from the south troll when things got spicey again. The 300’ WS got bit, landing a SH. The mono dipsey got smoked and we lost the gear but the Smart Troll probe stayed attached so I call that a win. Not sure how a double line uni knot would fail especially with all that line out. The GFP got bit once more boating a 14lb king. There were a couple of other drive buys/tip ups over that period then it got quite. My guests had a long drive so we pulled lines at 9:00pm. Over all, everyone got to touch a rod and bring in a fish. And fish was sent home with my guests. So I am happy we had a great time on the water. # Time Fish Weight FOW Troll Wind Dir. Speed @ Ball Rod Bait Depth Bait 1 5:45pm King 13 128 S S 2.3 DR 20# 90C Green Flounder Pounder Mag RV 2 5:57pm Steelhead 6 128 S S 2.3 Dipsey - Wire 57ST Hulk Mag RV 3 7:30pm Laker 10 118 NE S 2.2 SWR 115C Meat Rig, Silver Blue Head no Paddle 4 7:40pm Steelhead 7 116 NE S 2.3 Weighted Steel 300 Criags Flounder Pounder Mag RV 5 7:57pm Miss 115 N S 2.3 Dipsey - Mono 67 Hulk Mag RV 6 8:10pm King 14 115 N S 2.3 DR 20# 105C Green Flounder Pounder Mag RV

We got a steelie tonight - same profile.

2MD - you are a monster out there on the water. Another catch for the ages!

Which one of you landed the biggest fish???

That is a monster king - congrats! Thanks for the report.

Well you finally got that bloody nose to work for you. Landing all 3 fish on a triple while solo qualifies you as a professional! Going out tonight with an old friend from work. Many thanks for the report and hope we can find similar fun on the water. Congrats on a limit catch.

Congratulations on limiting out and posting the spoons that were winners. Capt. Chuck's will be happy to see this! Good luck at Big Red next weekend.

You got a hand fishing solo. Nice work. Going out tomorrow night with friends from my former job. Thanks for the report on running lines deep.

Wow. Now that is a story. Taking on water??? I guess that capt. made the right call getting in safely and letting the gear go to a loss. I would do the same without hesitation.